


Where’s the Leak, Ma’am?

by underworlds



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: AkuRoku Day, Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Drug Use, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marijuana, Mechanic Axel, Oral Sex, Photographer Roxas, Piercings, Praise Kink, Slice of Life, Tattoos, Topping from the Bottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:27:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26019544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underworlds/pseuds/underworlds
Summary: You know that feeling when you haven’t had a day off from work in weeks, your body aches, you’re hungry, your boyfriend is angry, and you’re just asking for the powers that be to cut you a little slack?Axel does.They send a broken sink instead.
Relationships: Axel/Roxas (Kingdom Hearts), Kairi/Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé/Xion (Kingdom Hearts), Roxas & Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Kudos: 29





	Where’s the Leak, Ma’am?

**Author's Note:**

> I’m only a week late! Happy belated AkuRoku Day! I am so happy to have found a group of talented fans since last year and so look forward to reading everything and hopefully becoming more active on here!
> 
> This is part of a larger modern AU I’ll likely never actually write. Axel and Roxas have been a couple for a while, having met in high school and now sharing a shitty apartment with Xion in their twenties. They’re rough around the edges but soft for each other, disgustingly so, even on the bad days.

_“Shit!”_

A wiry, white arm suddenly skittered out of the dark recess of the kitchen cabinet like a poorly directed scene out of a horror movie. The tattooed hand connected to it sought and fumbled with the heavy weight of the wrench sitting on the linoleum floor. A pipe in the kitchen sink had been compromised and was leaking water steadily into the bottom of the cabinet where the owner of said arm had crammed himself in an effort to stop it.

With each stubborn twist of the wrench, Axel could feel the muscle in his tattooed forearm strain and groan in protest, not unlike a weary ship at sea. After spending all day, all week, all month really, busy underneath various cars and bikes at the shop, he had not been expecting to return home to even more manual labor for his tight, overtaxed muscles. What he’d been hoping for was a hot shower, an easy minimal prep meal, a stiff drink, and a chance to sprawl on the couch with his boyfriend. Maybe, if he was extra lucky, he could even get a shoulder massage out of it too. He could moan at the mere thought of strong, unyielding tanned fingers digging into the knots tormenting him.The universe, it appeared, did not deem this pipedream amenable and had sent a pointed response in the form of a busted sink.

On the other hand, on a karmic scale perhaps he had just not been a good enough boy to earn it, which might as well be a chronic condition of his. His track record _was_ extensive. Arson, trespassing, stabbings. Whatever the case, he’d found himself on his back once more, ordinarily not a position he’d be complaining about, peering up into the scant light of the cabinet and testing the give of the traitorous pipe. 

With half of his long torso effectively lodged in the alcove, Axel again reached outwards towards the kitchen floor to fumble for the roll of duct tape. He could feel the splintery drag of the old wood against his bare shoulder blade and grimaced, making a mental note to try to sand it down another day. The flashlight of his cellphone shined bright and artificially white in the darkness, reflecting off the dirty, ancient metal piping.

He’d been aware of the device buzzing with a few alerts during the process, but hadn’t had the opportunity to check them while playing plumber and reaping none of the profit. Reno was in Vegas and saw fit to bombard his little brother with photo documentation of his shenanigans throughout the day. Axel wouldn’t be surprised if he was greeted with a shot of an uncomfortable looking Rude being motorboated by a showgirl when he checked the messages. Or perhaps it was Xion at her overnight at the animal shelter, beaming in the lens with a drooling mastiff.

He didn’t need to solve the sink problem, he just needed to make sure the flow of water stopped and didn’t turn this minor headache into a full blown migraine until it could be properly fixed. Now, ripping a generous portion of tape with his teeth, he reasoned it was as good as it was going to get until he could arrange for the super or a professional to break their salaried back under here. Axel secured the tape, gave it one final squint, and hissed as he shimmied out from under the sink.

He sat on the kitchen floor like a puppet with its strings cut, sighing as he rotated his splintered shoulders under his tank top, lamenting the way the muscles were taut and corded like a clogged fuel line. Axel had spent the majority of his twenty-something life covered in motor oil and repairing engines, it kept his hands occupied and brain focused and quiet. The physical aspect and exhaustion weren’t anything new, he had all the callouses and training to be well accustomed to it, but it had been a very long three weeks of almost non-stop overtime shifts. There was a big annual auto show and beer festival coming up that drew impressive crowds to their area and, along with their typical customers, there were a lot of collectors and aficionados who wanted to make sure their prized vehicles were well beyond just up-to-snuff for peacocking. 

Cid didn’t cut corners at the shop, especially when he was going to be bringing his prized bikes and vintage Cadillac to the same show his customers and colleagues would be attending. Tomorrow was Axel’s first day off and he was looking forward to it with the same enthusiasm of a child before a holiday. Sleep, whiskey, and finally some time alone with Roxas were still what he wished for, busted sink be damned.

With that in mind, Axel’s lips quirked of their own accord and he draped his wrists over his knees, humming a song that had been stuck on a loop in his head for the better half of the day. He took a few more moments to linger in one stationary position on the linoleum with such pleasant thoughts, and listened to the gentle pre-boiling of the pot of water on the stove. He tipped his head back against the cabinets with eyes closed, the haphazard scarlet ponytail cushioning his skull against the wood. 

This tired, he could probably doze off right there on the floor. It was basically a talent, being able to sleep on the floor, one acquired by the less than pleasant experiences of having no choice, but a talent all the same. This was one of the first extended moments of idle quiet he’d had all day and it was damn near impossible not to savor.

Until the aggressive slamming of the front door jarred him back to reality, cutting off his own internal chorus of the lingering song. Gripping the edge of the sink with one pale, dirty hand, Axel quickly hauled himself back to his feet despite the protests of his feeble human frame. He knew that slam, knew who it was, but he was already alert and wired at the abrupt sound out of instinct. Years of having various people: police, case workers, criminals, strangers, and otherwise coming through closed doors kind of leaves a lasting impression.

Sure enough, as he rounded the corner, he saw a slight form with damp blonde hair hurl their jacket against the wall with far more contempt than anyone would typically show a garment, even if it was out of season. It hit the floor with a wet slap and just from the way the blonde was holding himself, Axel knew this wasn’t going to be the easy, relaxing night at home he had written to Santa for.

“Rox?” he asked, unsurprised when bronzed shoulders bunched and that blonde head snapped to the side so quickly Axel had to wonder if he just strained something. His favorite pair of eyes, so beautiful and Pacific blue, were stormy with rage where they settled on him over his shoulder.

 _“Ah shit…”_ Axel knew from the look that he was in for it, but it was the ‘why’ he was uncertain of. Through his extensive history of getting into trouble he usually had the benefit of knowing precisely why he was on the receiving end of a shitstorm. He didn’t doubt he’d have to worry what it was he’d done for long, because he was about to find out. 

“So, did you just _not_ get my texts or calls?” Roxas asked, holding up his phone, the screen streaked with raindrops, before pointedly and a little carelessly tossing it on to the couch. “Or just decided waiting outside in the rain for twenty minutes would be fun?”

Axel blinked bemusedly, thinking back to a few hours earlier when they last texted, his last gif had been a winking cat, before the buzzing in the cabinet came back to him. It, apparently, wasn’t a frivolous Vegas motorboat selfie or a mastiff after all.

“Oh, _shit_.”

“Yeah,” Roxas hissed, kicking his soggy shoes off in the vague but general direction of the shoe-rack. “Shit.”

“Rox, the kitchen si-” he began, only to be cut off by Roxas abruptly raising a hand without looking at him.

“I _really_ fucking can’t right now,” he announced with a gathered effort of finality, a tremble in his voice, before storming down the hall towards the bedroom. 

The door slammed, or rather attempted to slam (it was yet another piece of shit on Axel’s to-fix list) a moment later and Axel sighed through his nostrils, rubbing the back of his neck. It was never a pleasant feeling, on the contrary it was amongst his very least favorites, to have Roxas angry with him, but he had the silver lining of already knowing that he was only slightly more than an unfortunate bystander in this case. The fact Roxas had removed himself from the encounter was something he wouldn’t have done when they first met all those years ago as teenagers. It was actually progress. 

Axel knew when Roxas’s temper wasn’t actually directed at him and he just happened to be in the splash zone. Even though he had missed the attempts to reach him that his boyfriend had called him on, it was more of the final kitty litter clump on top of a tower of shit day. No, sometimes Roxas just came home like this, like a baby rattlesnake, and Axel knew it was because of more than just being tired after a long day like he was, knew which warning signals were flashing and why. Still, removing his hand from his own neck, he curled his lip at the sight of just how much dirt he’d let accumulate during his fumbling. That, unlike many others, was an easy problem that could be solved with soap and water.

He walked back into the kitchen, hovered over the tap of the sink briefly before muttering a curse to himself and turning away in lieu of sabotaging his own work. He found a box of wipes Xion had stowed away when they ran out of toilet paper a few weeks back and cleaned the grime from his hands. With one bony hip pivoted against the counter, Axel continued humming and intermittently singing the niggling song, twisted open the cap of the bottle of quality whiskey he’d been saving, and poured a generous serving into a glass, forgoing the ice cubes. Then he paused mid-pour before snorting and topping himself off with a huff of _“why the fuck not?”._

Raising the precarious edge to his lips he hummed at the spicy, strong scent of the liquor before taking a sip. As the burn of the liquid overwhelmed his sense of taste, the mechanic thought ‘ _oh yeah that’s the stuff…’_ Warmth settled in his belly, reminding him he hadn’t eaten much today and that the pasta was ready to be strained. The redhead took another generous sip, more a shot, of his drink before setting it aside and taking up the strainer like it was a spear. He stood and then abrutply stopped in front of the compromised sink, pot of boiling water in one hand and strainer in the other before saying, “Well, fuck…” 

Axel weighed his options for a moment, it would be his luck if he poured it out over the balcony and accidentally gave someone below second degree burns. Instead, he comically weaved through the apartment to the bathroom, not unlike Scarecrow during Wizard of Oz, passing Roxas’s door, and emptied the boiling liquid into the strainer over the functioning sink.

Back in the kitchen, with the pot still hot, he nudged open the fridge to snag a jar of sauce with nothing but a white label and a tomato and a flower drawn on it. Namine had given them a couple jars made with vegetables from her garden a few weeks back. There was another jar in the back with less than a quarter left that Axel made a note to dispose of later, like he had for the past month. He emptied the contents into the pot and returned to the strainer, jostling and shifting the farfalle so it wouldn’t clump together. If his stomach had eyes it would be leering like a man with an unfortunate mustache, but instead made its feelings known through a loud and demanding gurgle.

“I know, I know,” Axel muttered to himself, taking another sip of his drink and considered making Roxas one of his preferred gin cocktails. He could probably use one if the last five minutes were anything to judge by.

Axel stirred the sauce for the next couple minutes, the ripe smells tempting him to simply lick the spoon like an animal, but he restrained himself until the heat was off, the pasta distributed back into the pot, the seasoning applied, and everything was thoroughly mixed. Then, he plucked one of the straggling pieces off the spoon and tossed it into his mouth. It wasn’t al dente, and frankly he was surprised he’d been able to wait long enough for the farfalle to get properly soft and edible.

When Axel ambled back into the living room he took note of Roxas sitting at one end of the couch, once again impressed at how the other man was able to navigate through the apartment soundlessly. Like an ornery cat. He deposited one of the bowls on the table in front of Roxas, complete with a paper towel and a plastic fork. Even looking out of the corner of his eye, he could fully appreciate how, although he had changed clothes, Roxas looked as though he also spent his entire day crammed into uncomfortable positions and even more uncomfortable situations.

Never one to let an awkward silence fester, Axel summed, “I take it you had a super fun day?” before taking a singular bite.

Roxas sighed, years of exhaustion and grief starkly apparent on his young, handsome face. He gave the blonde a few beats for the words to hang between them while he meandered back into the kitchen for his whiskey and two cans of soda. When he returned, Roxas was regarding him through his wet bangs with a guilty expression.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was almost flat, absent of the heat and flint it had when he walked through the door. “I’m...that wasn’t fair.”

“Nah, it wasn’t,” Axel validated, collapsing beside the blonde on the couch. He let his body sink and settle into the cushion with a pained moan, the muscular tension slowly throbbing away in time with his heartbeat. Still, he managed to reach out a hand to brush against those damp strands of gold. “But I get it. S’okay.”

“It’s not okay, Axel,” Roxas wearily grumbled, his own fingers twisting in his lap. “I’m trying to be repentant here.”

“Pass me my food and we’ll skip the Hail Marys and say all is forgiven, my child.” Axel pointed at the second bowl a good three feet in front of him, making a grabby motion to which Roxas acquiesced.

“My aching back thanks you.” He stuffed a forkful into his mouth, garbling his speech. “Go wif Ghod.”

Roxas rolled his eyes- fondly, Axel was pleased to notice- and reached for his own bowl to join him. For the next few minutes, the only sounds were their forks against the sides of the bowls and their muffled, respective chewing. Both of them had neglected their basic nutritional needs today it seemed. Part of why this relationship worked is because even though Axel often wondered what was swirling around under that mess of blonde hair, he didn’t push it for his own sake. He often drove himself to distraction worrying about it, sure, but he didn’t pry (too much), and he didn’t affect himself to get Roxas to unwrap the metaphorical gauze and show him the wounds he guarded almost selfishly. 

Generally, if and when Roxas was ready to talk about something, he may, but there was nothing that would get him to clam up faster and more tightly than someone he wasn’t close to looking at him with big, concerned, eyes and a quivering lower lip. Axel would periodically wrangle the reactions and words out of him when necessary, like when Roxas was bottling too much up and on his way to an explosive, messy, tantrum. But, he was among the holy trinity or holy fivesome with that power and honor.

With other people, ‘normal, well adjusted people’, their eyes would be welling with a still-to-be-determined cocktail of sympathy, pity, and obligation. That combined with the higher register of voice people tended to develop when speaking to someone in a situation such as Roxas’s, soft, piteous, and bordering on patronizing, like talking to a four year old, made Roxas’s molars grind. 

Sure enough, after those minutes of eating, which Axel couldn’t deny he was grateful to dedicate his full attention to, Roxas stabbed a piece of his dinner and let the fork fall into the bowl with a quiet ‘click’. Axel pretended not to notice how Roxas’s gaze weighed heavily on the glass of whiskey on the table. Eventually, around Axel’s fifth chew, Roxas leaned forward.

“Can I have a sip?”

Mouth full, Axel grunted in what he knew Roxas could interpret as an affirmative. Internally, he checked off another box of behavior patterns on The Roxas Scale. If Roxas wasn’t remorseful, he wouldn’t have even bothered asking. Once they had swallowed, pasta and liquor respectively, Axel nodded towards the kitchen.

“I left a glass next to the gin,” he said. “Wasn’t sure if you were in the mood for a drink.”

Roxas glanced toward the doorway dividing the two rooms, the forefinger of his left hand tapping restlessly against the glass in his hand. He nodded and took another sip. Axel also pretended not to notice the wrinkle of his fair brows right before his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed the liquor. He knew this particular whiskey wasn’t to Roxas’s taste, and could always tell by a few cues when the blonde was realizing that venturing to try a new drink was a mistake. Every once in a while, out at the bar, Axel could get away with taking the offending beverage off his hands, but Roxas would down it out of sheer stubbornness almost as frequently.

“Delicious, right?” The redhead teased, depositing his empty bowl on the table.

“Like a muffler,” Roxas deadpanned, smacking his lips and putting the glass down.

“Please don’t say muffler,” Axel groaned and clapped both hands to his heavily pierced ears. “With the amount I’ve fixed this month, I’m liable to throw myself off the balcony if I hear it again.”

Roxas, shedding all the subdued morose attitude that had clung to him like a funeral veil since he entered the apartment, smirked and stared at him, inching closer. Axel maintained a wary eye contact, familiar with the mischievous look that spread across his face like the morning sun.

“Mmm…” he hummed, lips pressed together as he drew ever closer.

“Roxas, don’t,” Axel whined, but didn’t retreat, bone-tired as he was.

“Muuhh….” The blonde's white teeth peeked out from his lips, the stretch of his summery smile extending.

“You’re killing me. Positively maiming me.”

He leaned forward on his knees, caging, “Muff-“

Axel gasped dramatically, “Oh now you’re just being dirty.”

“Muffl…” Roxas paused with a few inches left between them, heart suddenly stuttering, eyes widening. 

This close, he could clearly see the dark circles beneath Axel’s absinthe green eyes, the heaviness of the lids beneath the slightly smudged liner. It had taken this long for him to truly see what was right in front of him, how worn out Axel was, how the exhaustion weighed down each of his limbs like a manacle. All this plain on his face, and he was still catering to Roxas’s turbulent mood. How long had he looked this tired? A couple days? A week? Longer? He felt a swoop of guilt in the pit of his stomach again, like a bird of prey in a dive. Between class and Sora he hadn’t been paying attention for this long?

Just as concern started to swell in those kohl lined eyes, as the thin cardinal brows arched, as Axel started to questioningly say his name, Roxas surged forward and caught the first syllable between their connected lips. It only took a beat before Axel recovered and responded in kind, raising a hand to cup one side of Roxas’s face and really lean into the kiss.

With his fingers tangled in the gathered hair below the ponytail at the crown of Axel’s skull, Roxas used the superior leverage to tug Axel’s head backwards so the white column of his throat was delightfully exposed. Axel groaned appreciatively, his ever wicked tongue flicked up against Roxas’s lips seeking entry, which Roxas gladly granted. He shuddered at the confident sweep of the elder’s pierced tongue against his own, the slow and heady simmer of energy between them. That’s something that hadn’t changed, in all the years they’d known each other, the undeniable exchange of static.

They made out like that for long minutes, deeply, intimately, and reassuringly until Roxas broke the connection to bite into the pale valley of Axel’s neck. He could hear the startled redhead groan above him as he continued towards his goal, applying harsh, wet suction, until he was satisfied with what was sure to bloom into a clear imprint of his devotion.

“Little shit,” he heard Axel hiss after he released his hold, “First Notebooking me like that outta nowhere and now going full Lugosi. Definitely plotting my death.”

“You’re like a cockroach.” Roxas grinned down at him, gaze lingering on his handiwork. “You’ll live.”

Axel brushed a finger against the sensitive spot beneath the blonde’s pierced ear. “And what does that say about the one who just played tonsil hockey with a cockroach?” 

“Well…”Roxas in turn pressed his thumb to the bite, relishing the hiss and lowering of lashes it provoked in Axel. “You are a very attractive cockroach.”

“Oh!” Axel suddenly perked up, remembering something. “Totally forgot! Speaking of roaches…”

Roxas watched, a little insulted that his ministrations were so abruptly ignored in favor of whatever the hell Axel was scrambling for in the end table drawer. He briefly considered the older man had stowed away another sex toy in here, against Xion’s specific rules, but was rather unclear and wary on how that related to roaches. Instead, Axel turned back to him with his Cheshire grin and held a few well-wrapped joints between his fingers. 

“Reno sends his regards for checking on his place while they’re in Vegas.”

Roxas narrowed his eyes, “Your brother sends his regards as in he left them as a gift or as in you were snooping?”

Axel stuck out his silver tongue playfully, “Maybe a little of both.”

Roxas grinned wide, raising his hands over his head with a joyous cry. After being out of stock for a while with their regular dealer on vacation, loaded with work, Roxas has been yearning for the sweet, boneless relief of a joint. It was one of the first things that he and Axel ever bonded over, as bad kids behind the high school, after all.

“Here,” Axel said as he deposited one of the joints in Roxas’s hand and pressed a light kiss to his forehead . “I’m gonna get another drink, go ahead and light that sucker up.” He ambled towards the kitchen, a little stiff, but not without mirth.

Instead, Roxas lingered in the living room and shifted the well-rolled joint between his fingers, impressed by the quality, no doubt something Reno procured from work, until he heard the footfalls and clink of ice cubes that signaled Axel’s return. He didn’t miss the soft, amused expression the redhead wore upon noticing Roxas had waited for him and accepted the offered gin and tonic glass before they went outside together.

The humidity in the air was palpable, but not as thick as it had been when the daylight bore down on the parched sun-kissed town. Now it hung over their exposed flesh as lightly as a spider web, the veil periodically disturbed by the breeze and rain. Roxas shivered as they settled down on the bench beneath the safety of the overhang, the dampness of his collar and dripping hair from being stuck in the storm earlier catching the breeze. Gooseflesh rose on his bare, tan arms and at the back of his neck as he watched Axel fish a yellow lighter out from his jean pocket.

Axel, obviously noticing, murmured a quiet, “C’mere, you” around the joint and lifted his arm to draw the smaller but grateful man into the nook of his side. With the tattooed limb draped over him for extra warmth, Roxas grinned at the familiar sensation of Axel automatically drawing mindless shapes into his skin with his fingertips. With his dominant hand he flicked the lighter to life and raised the flame to the end of the joint dangling from his lips.

As he watched the flare of the small flame illuminate his boyfriend’s sharp face, enhancing the blades of his cheekbones, his tattoos, and the almost toxic color of his eyes, Roxas could feel Axel’s slow, steady inhale against his cheek where it rested against the redhead’s collar. And then the way his diaphragm released smoothly to give way to flurries of smoke that smoke that hung in the air before them, momentarily suspended, until being twisted and taken by the wind. He took the offered lit joint from Axel and savored a drag of his own, the thick earthy fire sliding down his throat to fill his lungs. Roxas released, clearing his throat and passing it back before taking a sip of his gin. They continued like this for a series of passes, Roxas eventually feeling good and opting to watch the rain under the weight of the elder’s half embrace until Axel finished. 

It was warm, as Axel always was, and Roxas settled into the cozy feeling, knowing if he was on Axel’s other side he would be hearing his heart pounding directly beneath his ear. On this side, along Axel’s ribs he knew he’d find a nasty scar beneath his tank top. A physical reminder of Axel’s rough history as a kid in the system, a time when he earned a decent portion of his reputation as bad news. The kind of low-class trouble upstanding people would whisper that you don’t want hanging around your kids, let alone assigned as an upperclassman mentor to your chronically ill but too friendly son and the befriending his physically healthy but rebellious brother. 

Eyes closed, he could feel his barnacle of anxiety that he carries around like spare change finally start to taper off. No longer did it feel like he had been pacing all day without even moving his feet. The rhythmic pattern of Axel’s fingers on his skin and the steady rainfall made time syrupy. He let himself drift like that, for how long he couldn’t say, the joint and gin were partially responsible for that too. Yet, it had been like this since early on, the ease and peace of mind each other’s presence brought in a world that was more like a loaded gun.

“He has to stay overnight again,” Roxas finally mumbled into the din of the rain.

“More tests?” Axel quietly asked, voice hoarse from the smoke.

“Mmhm,” he barely nodded against Axel’s pectoral, fingers tightening around the steamy glass. “They’re not sure why it happened.”

“No doubt Sora is keeping all the nurses in stitches in the meantime,” Axel chuckled, making Roxas smile softly in agreement.

A few days ago, Sora had collapsed on the beach. Roxas’s twin brother had a long history of medical issues and complications since birth and spent more time in hospitals growing up than any child should have to. Which, in turn, meant Roxas spent almost as much time there as well. Their admittedly codependent bond made proximity as much of a necessity as eating, something Roxas notoriously neglected in favor of focusing on Sora. He’d been known to clear out a whole candy section of the hospital cafeteria vending machine in lieu of vegetables.

Frightening hospital trips weren’t anything new, unfortunately. Roxas was well acquainted with the process, stronger for it some might claim, but the sting and weight of them almost always hit later on, in the form of anger, which is what Axel was in the first row for earlier that evening. Roxas hadn’t been there when it happened, something the blonde would continuously punish himself for, against all logic. What had mattered was that Riku and Kairi were there with Sora, that he wasn’t alone.

Being Sora’s best friends, it hadn’t been their first rodeo either, Riku gathering Sora into his arms as if he were weightless while Kairi sprinted ahead, dialing the hospital and readying the car for a hasty departure. It was one of Roxas’s greatest anxieties, something happening to Sora when he wasn’t there, but it was further complicated by Roxas’s fear of something happening to Sora with him there, but alone. The cyclical nature of it was maddening. 

Axel dropped the spent joint into the ashtray. “We can go visit tomorrow.” 

Roxas hummed through a sip, tracking the way Axel’s fingers settled behind his pierced ear to stroke his hair in a way that was equally lulling him to sleep and starting to turn him on. Again, the weed.

“Maybe, I think Kairi and Riku have got it.” Roxas tilted his head into the touch, peering up at Axel’s face through lidded eyes. “Besides, it’s your day off.”

Axel rolled his eyes and replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, “Roxas, it could be my fuckin’ birthday, I’d still say we could visit your brother in the hospital.”

The younger man laughed, nudging Axel’s ribs with his elbow. “I think the time you showed up to the hospital stoned, ate his _and_ his roommate’s pudding on your birthday that time in high school proved that.”

Axel gave a smug burst of laughter at the memory, which sent Roxas into a fit of chuckling, that continued on and on until Roxas was clutching at his boyfriend’s shirt, unable to catch his breath.

“Sora didn’t like vanilla! As his mentor it was my responsibility to relieve him of it!” Axel choked out between snickers. “And the other dude was asleep!”

Roxas giggled harder in response, “That still doesn’t make it okay to steal their pudding, you ass!”

Axel’s hand shifted down Roxas’s jawline to nudge his chin up from the ducked position of laughter, and tried, 75% successfully, to smirk at him without laughing in kind, “Oh admit it, Rox. You totally fell more in love with me ‘cause of that.”

Roxas was thankful for the exertion of the laughter because it hid the way he felt his face heat up further. Instead of confirming, he tilted his head to catch Axel’s thumb with his lower lip. He flexed one of his lifelong weapons, adapting an expression he’d been told was best described as ‘debauched’, all lidded bedroom eyes and bitten lips.

“You’re trying to distract me,” Axel accused, knowing that look, his own hungry expression evidence enough.“You just don’t wanna admit it's true!”

“Trying?” Roxas didn’t miss the intake of breath when one of his hands settled on Axel’s groin. “More like succeeding.” 

“Definitely succeeding.” Axel’s heady gaze weighed on where Roxas’s pink tongue slashed along the band of one of his silver rings. “Your mouth has been distracting since the moment I met you.”

Before long, the teasing led to heavier petting, which led to Roxas adjusting to sit in Axel’s lap as they necked again, the rain a backdrop of white noise, the taste of weed and liquor on their tongues rendering them giggly and sloppy. It was moments like these that made it all worth it, what they both had wished for late at night when the world was cruel, unfair, and full of darkness

* * *

Eventually they abandoned their glasses and meandered across the apartment to make it to the bedroom, briefly separating so Roxas could charitably rid Axel of his shirt, sparing him the strain of doing it himself. As they moved forward across the room, backwards for him, Axel felt the back of his legs meet the edge of the bed. 

Normally he’d welcome a good, sexy aggressive shove down on the mattress, but even under the layer of liquor and marijuana, his sore body reminded him that it had limits. Even if he refused to acknowledge them, as he’d done for his whole life. He eased down on his back, watching with a coiling heat of anticipation in his belly as Roxas pulled his own shirt over his head before shucking his jeans. 

The blonde crawled across the bed to straddle his waist again and Axel peered up at him from this new lower vantage point. Like this, prone, with his hands behind his head, he could take in the full vision— and what a vision it was. The lamp across the room backlit Roxas’s lean silhouette in a golden glow that resembled a halo. It wasn’t the first or the last time the younger man would remind him of a Baroque painting come to life and dirtied up a little bit. The redhead drew one of his hands forward from behind him to run inked fingers up, up, up from the sun-kissed expanse of Roxas’s pierced belly to splay across his breastbone. 

“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful, Rox,” he murmured ardently, as if on his knees before an altar. 

He watched as the holy vision atop him smiled not all that beneficently while taking that open hand in his own and pulling it up further until Axel was groaning at the sight and sensation of the deliberately devilish way he’d sucked two of Axel’s most important fingers into that plush mouth. A distraction indeed. 

The blonde rocked his hips lazily against Axel as he suckled, the hard length of him impossible to ignore. Axel hissed at the confinement of his own jeans, growing increasingly desperate to feel the smooth drag of his partner’s bare flesh against his straining cock. 

“You say that to all the boys?” Roxas teased, running the tip of his tongue along Axel’s index finger.

“Tch,” Axel huffed, equal parts attitude and effected by Roxas’s treatment. “As if any other boys can compare.”

Roxas released his hand and slunk forward over Axel’s front, kissing him soundly and rocking their hips together with confident intention. Axel, impatient, tugged at the band of Roxas’s shorts, a silent plea to move it along.

“No.” Roxas took his offending hand by the wrist and pressed it firmly back to the mattress, answering his questioning look with, “Just relax. Let me.”

Axel, also obedient only under certain circumstances, cocked his head curiously but relented and let Roxas draw away and rise up to dispose himself of his underwear. That perplexed expression quickly shifted into an excited one when the blonde returned and began tugging his jeans down and off so he could slide his fingers beneath the band of Axel’s own shorts. Then, with a lower lip bitten at the intimate sight of Roxas keeping eye contact as he bent and lapped at Axel’s twitching cock through the fabric, his face shifted into one of awed hunger.

“Baby, you gonna tease me all night?” his fingers twitched with the urge to bury them in those blonde locks. “Had such a long day, pity me.”

“Don’t worry,” Roxas assured, nuzzling his face against the hard flesh and pressing a kiss to the darker grey fabric, the wet spot created by the leaking head. “I’ll take care of you.”

Axel shuddered, feeling the physical impact of those words sweep over him like warm honey. He could trust Roxas to keep true to his word in ways others hadn’t. He felt himself nodding, trigger fingers curling into the comforter in lieu of pale gold hair. Doing his best to let Roxas take his time, to take care of him as promised, Axel didn’t feel bad about the unabashed moan he released when Roxas suddenly enveloped his dripping cockhead in warm, velvety heat.

He could feel his tight neck strain, head thrown back as Roxas lovingly tongued the piercings in his dick. Axel always swore up and down that the healing period was worth the way Roxas loved getting his mouth on him, like he couldn’t get enough, like he could happily watch television or idly doze off swirling his little pink tongue around each silver sphere. It took him a long time to notice the addition of a bottle of lube on the bed and the blonde’s undulating movement between his legs, fingers buried between his cheeks. He could hardly be blamed, what with the way Roxas was taking him into his throat with practiced technique.

The sight made his cock twitch against Roxas’s tongue, the younger sucking on him as he got himself ready for the cock he was nursing on. He liked opening Roxas up himself, putting his long fingers to use, especially if that meant getting to watch the blonde grow more restless and more likely to beg for his cock, dirty angel face both pleading and demanding for supplication. He mourned not being able to feel that tight hole clench around his fingers, comforting himself with the hope that Roxas just might be merciful enough to speed this along.

The blonde photographer must have been on the same wavelength because he gagged himself on Axel’s impressive length a few more times before withdrawing with a wet pop.

“Ready?” he asked with a wry smile, drool clinging to his chin.

Axel managed to snort, spreading his legs invitingly for his boyfriend to drizzle more lube on his already slick length. “I think we both need it tonight…”

“I think you’re right,” Roxas agreed, slinking up the older’s hips to align himself. Maybe as a reminder or maybe to ground himself, he wrapped his fingers around Axel’s wrist when he sunk down on his cock. He felt the tendons in Axel’s arm jump with the impulse to reach for Roxas’s hip, to ease him down, but that wouldn’t do.

Roxas, stubborn as ever, urged himself down the last few inches, the nails of his other hand digging into Axel’s chest with the effort. But his face, oh his face was one of pride and satisfaction, like the burn finally scratched an itch. Axel didn’t buck, bit his lip at the hot clench of his lover’s hole, his grip on his wrist, and the sharp sting of his nails. Axel still released a smug chuckle.

“Fuck, Rox.” He leaned up on his elbows, still technically not touching, to leave a fraction of an inch between their lips. “S’like you were born to take my cock and you wanna prove it.”

Roxas answered in a groaning laugh, circling his hips tauntingly, even as his own dick leaked precum against Axel’s abdomen, before relenting and kissing him. Their tongues brushed greedily, possessively, the mechanic using this opportunity of contact to truly render Roxas’s mouth as swollen and slick as his hole. His eyes rolled back when Roxas started bouncing on his cock, letting it draw almost all the way out before sheathing himself suddenly. And then again and again. 

“You’re so good to me, Ax,” Roxas panted out, trying to maintain the rhythm. “Take such good care of me.”

“Always,” the redhead groaned, a little out of it already. “Always will.”

“You’re so considerate, so sweet it’s fucking ridiculous.” Roxas grabbed at his chin, tipped it up, “but only for me huh?”

“F-fuck yes, Rox,” he agreed because it was true.

“Such a good boy,” Roxas cooed to Axel’s shivering delight. “If I hadn’t had such a bad day maybe I would have appreciated coming home, seeing you all dirty and wrung out, on your back doing home improvement.”

“Was more necessary than improvement,” Axel conceded, taking the pause to inhale a few deep breaths, which were swiftly cut off by Roxas grinding down hard, as if to say ‘pay attention, idiot’.

“Maybe I would have blown you there on the kitchen floor,” Roxas continued. “Let you fuck my mouth, shown some appreciation for such domesticity. But instead I was a little bitch and you took care of me anyway.”

Roxas’s babbling praise short-circuited when he found a new angle and whimpered, “Fuck, you feel good!” 

Axel’s hands clutched the bedsheets, his vision beginning to swim in a myriad of pleasure, inebriation, and exhaustion. He found himself slurring, “Please Rox, let me touch you.”

“Will that make you happy, Axel?” Roxas asked between breaths, leaning down to tongue the throat bitemark he made earlier on the couch “That what my good slut needs?”

Axel whined at the white-hot lash of arousal those words provoked and he nodded rapidly with a hiss of, “Yes, wanna touch you, fuck you, watch you come on my cock!” 

Roxas made a disbelieving but amused sound as he raised his head to regard his lover, make eye contact, see how his liner was smeared with more than just tiredness. Axel’s eyes were lit with imploring fondness, pupils blown with arousal, a jade irises a little cloudy, and his fingers twitched desperately. “Come on sweetheart please.”

It only took Roxas nodding for Axel’s hands to spring from the mattress and haul him impossibly closer. His ravenous fingers roamed over narrow hips, up to thumb against his grinning lover’s pierced nipples, restless and hungry for the sound and sight of the other’s pleasure. Axel planted his feet on the bed and used the leverage to thrust upward into the warm cradle of Roxas’s body with a single minded focus, resulting in the long drawn out melody of the blonde’s sharp keening cry. 

“Come on, Rox, come for me. I wanna see it,” he implored with a snarl, a hand grasping the blonde’s erection. “Please, babe. Such a little shit, knew all I needed to do was fuck some of that bad mood out of you and now look at you, crying on my cock.”

Axel grabbed a handful of Roxas’s ass and pulled him further to meet his desperate thrusts, impaling him deeper and rubbing tenaciously at his prostate until it became too much. Roxas whimpered, and came with a short scream, body juddering with pleasure as his cock spurted his release between their stomachs. 

The younger man’s bent head bounced along with the continued motion of the fucking, open pink mouth panting with the aftershocks as his hand clutched af Axel’s tattooed arms for purchase when the redhead didn’t stop. Roxas’s ass rippled around his length, the distinct drag of his piercings even more apparent now that the blonde was so oversensitive. However, it didn’t take long for Axel to follow, the achieved sight of Roxas’s orgasm and the generous clenching of Roxas’s fluttering hole too much to withhold any longer. He nosed Roxas’s dazed face up so he could connect their mouths, passing his peaking moan between their lips until it was a muffled growl.

Roxas regained enough focus to meet Axel’s frantic, devoted kiss, a heavy hand coming up to cup his cheek in a wordless encouragement to let go. Axel allowed Roxas’s pleasure heavy weight to soothingly press him back against the mattress, his own orgasm washing over him in a cresting wave that robbed him of what little physical strength he had remaining. He felt Roxas kissing his cheek after an unclear amount of time, his limbs heavy and almost useless. 

Seconds or minutes must have gone by, enough time for Roxas to have climbed off, flicked the light, curled into Axel’s side on the bed, and drawn the sheet around their waists. Axel began to consider how long it must have taken, maybe a minute, but then he felt Roxas’s lips at his pulse point where he’d made himself comfortable, and forgot whatever he was thinking. His own lips twitched in the ghost of a smile, he was so in love with this boy.

Tomorrow he’d fuck the Roxas as hard as he wanted, until he was sure all manner of anxiety and stress was banished from his mind if any still remained after tonight. If he had to use his dick to reduce Roxas’s brain to porridge so there wasn’t even room for lingering worry, so be it. He’d do anything.

Roxas released a bone-deep, satisfied sigh, one that made Axel’s ever-aware heart clench happily, after tucking his face further into Axel’s neck. 

“Love you, Ax,” the blonde murmured.

Axel might have answered, might have said the only possible response, sure as the setting sun. Or sleep took him first, wrapping the two boys, burdened and scarred but together, in its dark and sweet oblivion.

* * *

  
Roxas was expectedly up first the next morning and spent more time than he’d generally admit watching Axel continue to doze, dead to the world. After managing to disentangle himself from the exhausted redhead’s grasp, he lingered at the edge of the bed, peering through the slivers of sunlight that managed to pierce the dark room and how they fell over the long limbed mass on the bed. Axel had one arm tucked behind his head, the other sluggishly drawing one of the pillows to fill the void Roxas left behind, his lashes creating shadows over his sharp cheeks.

With the swell of overwhelming fondness and appreciation from last night having not dissipated, Roxas decided to take advantage of the feeling. He left Axel to blissful and well-earned unconsciousness to amble into the kitchen with only a slight limp in his gait. Passing by the windows, he was pleased to see a clear sky, only the ghostly dew remaining of last evening’s rainstorm. Their dirty dishes from dinner were still on the counter and it took Roxas’s morning brain a few beats to remember that he couldn’t wash them in the sink even if he were so inclined.

Roxas also decided to take advantage of what had been described to him as his frightening morning mood by picking up the phone and getting this taken care of before Axel woke up. He was grumbling with the coffee maker, phone in one ear, explaining to the super that it was well within their lease to expect facilities repairs in an immediate fashion lest there be unfortunate legal repercussions when the front door opened.

Roxas’s glower momentarily brightened when Xion stepped into the kitchen and waved at him. Her t-shirt was covered in animal hair, per usual, and she carried a tray of drinks from which she plucked an iced coffee and handed it to him. He mouthed his silent adorations to her giggling retreating form before continuing his pointed conversation.

It wasn’t until about ten minutes later he entered the living room to find Xion sprawled across the couch in her jean shorts and sports bra, hairy shirt discarded elsewhere. 

“Hey, Axel warned me about the sink,” she chirped upon his entrance and sat up. “Wanna go to the beer garden? Nami said she’d DD.”

Roxas considered with a noncommittal hum, thoughts drifting to Axel in his coma and looked at Xion’s messy black hair. She’d undoubtedly have to shower first which bought time, it was so nice out, and Axel might appreciate getting day drunk if he wasn’t still made of brittle bones.

“Depends on Axel,” Roxas said. “How was the overnight?”

Xion’s blue eyes sparkled, as they often did when she discussed shelter work. He listened and watched her pantomime the events of her evening with a huge but not very bright Great Dane, a sassy husky, and a litter of kittens until Axel appeared from the hallway.

“Sup, Eliza Thornberry,” he remarked to Xion, ruffling her hair. The drowsy mechanic had managed to find a pair of loose pajama pants that barely clung to his hips. Xion pitched her plan to him and Roxas was momentarily distracted by a knock at the door. The plumber, he guessed, shocked and a little smug at the efficiency.

He heard Axel let out an exuberant, “Hell yeah! Tell that little snowflake of yours to get over here!” and the sounds of he and Xion shuffling towards the kitchen while discussing details.

Roxas opened the door to a startlingly short and stout bespectacled man. He long in the tooth and long in the mustache, which obscured much of his upper lip. Roxas was equally startled by his loud, booming voice and unexpected accent.

“Where’s the leak, ma’am?”

Roxas blinked, “Excuse me?”

“The leak,” the plumber enunciated rather unhelpfully. “The pipes, lass, the pipes!”

Not even the loud bang of Axel and Xion collapsing together against the wall in a fit of stifled laughter could distract from the way Roxas’s jaw dropped and a whole butterfly life cycle took place in the form of his fluctuating expressions. They finally bloomed and culminated in Roxas just turning on his side and pointing at the kitchen with one hand, while the other pinched at the bridge of his nose. The man, the plumber, shuffled into the kitchen with his armful of tools without so much more as a how do you do or my name is…

Roxas felt arms encircle his waist, pulling his attention away from the perplexing conundrum of now having to hear a story about how an old facilities worker thought he was a young girl for the the rest of his days.

“Hey girl,” Axel grinned crookedly over his shoulder. 

“Ugh,” Roxas groaned, pushing into his taller frame. “Go back to bed.”

Axel took his hands, sidestepping and twirling Roxas’s near dead weight in a ridiculous dance. “Can’t! We’re gonna go drink! It’s my day off!”

Roxas snorted and rolled his eyes. “Recover that quickly have you?”

Axel laughed, forcing Roxas to meet him in an uncoordinated waltz. “What can I say, sex and sleep are magic.”

He reeled Roxas in, arms back around his waist, demeanor abruptly softening. “But seriously, we can go visit Sora instead.”

Roxas smiled and touched their foreheads together, up on his tiptoes to do so. “Nah it’s okay. I got a pic of Riku passed out in a chair with Sora and Kairi taking turns stacking things on him until he wakes up.”

Axel’s face brightened and he laughed, a sight and sound that made the swelling in Roxas’s chest grow again. That thing called love, he expected. And, just as expectedly, Axel’s grin turned sleazy and he tipped his head toward the hallway.

“Wanna share a shower? Save water, see if Gramps’ hearing aid is cranked up enough to hear some ruckus?”

“Hmm,” Roxas hummed, feigning indecision before suddenly pressing a thumb to the now beautifully bloomed hickey on Axel’s neck. He delighted in the squawk he heard behind him as he took off towards the bathroom, footfalls not far behind.

  
  



End file.
